


novelty

by aromantic-eight (rbmifan)



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - White Collar Fusion, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/pseuds/aromantic-eight
Summary: Freshly out of Allenwood, Federal Correctional Institution, Loki evaluates her newfound situation.





	novelty

**Author's Note:**

> Teddy is an FBI agent in New York’s white collar division and devoted husband to Billy. A year and a half ago, he caught the infamous and ruthless con artist known only as Loki. Now he’s made a deal with her: she agrees to help him bring in other white collar criminals and keep her nose clean, and he makes sure she doesn’t spend the next 10 years stuck in solitary in a men’s prison. It’s a win win scenario, if they can make it work.
> 
> This is the first snippet in a larger AU, that will be posted... at some point.

**+1:30**

Teddy took her for coffee first, after the paperwork came through and an unsmiling guard latched a tracker on her leg and she was “released into his care.” She wasn’t sure why. The man seemed to genuinely like talking to her, even when she was only following every other word and the only thing she had to contribute were her latest theories about the plot against her life. Which Teddy didn’t even believe was real. Whatever. 

He left her at a motel (after reminding her of her radius, and and the five things she was allowed to do, and exactly when he would be arriving tomorrow to make sure she hadn’t bolted) and Loki took stock of her new room. It had a window, which was an improvement over solitary. You couldn’t see the sky, but it was the principle. It also had a bed with a frame that might hold her weight, walls that definitely wouldn’t, and a lock that might have worked once ten years ago. 

She examined it. Then examined the mattress, and likely hiding places, and considered the benefits of just carrying everything she owned in a huge purse. 

 

**+2:11**

There was a thrift shop just on the edge of her radius that sold clothes piled in huge wooden bins for a dollar each. Loki was there for thirty seconds before she realized the choice she was about to have to make, and texted Teddy.

_‘What the fuck am I supposed to wear?’_

The reply came back vaguely confused ( _‘something business formal?’_ ) and then, half a second later, less confused ( _‘if anyone gives you shit they’ll answer to me, so wear what you want’_ and _‘as long as it’s still business formal’_ ).

She felt an emotion, then. She wasn’t exactly sure which one, but she’d been in nothing but prison issued men’s uniform for, fuck, 2 years? And the thought of having to keep doing that for the next forever of her work parole was suddenly intolerable, now there was an option not to. 

She walked to the skirts bin and started looking for anything black and pencil.

 

**+4:53**

She changed in the store and stuffed the old clothes in a hideous but large and sufficiently business-y purse. Carefully pulled the cuff of her boots over the tracking anklet and then checked the mirror and sighed with relief that the boot didn’t bulge noticeably. They were the only pair even vaguely the right shape that fit. She checked the rest of her; the jacket was slightly too tight and a different shade of black than the skirt, but it was passable, she thought. Automatically, she started placing it into a background (how did the woman in the mirror get here, what was she like?) and then stopped. This wasn’t a con, technically. The woman in the mirror was herself. Just…. a better, law-abiding version of herself. She’d have to be. Loki fingered her hair (past her shoulders, possibly the longest it had ever been) and selected a smile that would get her through the rest of the day. 

 

**+5:21**

The four months she’d spent as the demure makeup specialist in Hollywood, she’d worn $200 acrylic nails that could look like anything from fashionable obsidian to black lace. They were a far cry from the $2 bottle of black goop she’d found on the discount shelf, but even that was an expense she technically couldn’t afford right now. Loki rolled the bottle in her hand and figured she’d already been caught because of her insistence on black nails, always. It was far too late to back out now because of _practicality_. 

She left the drug store and lingered on the sidewalk. Looked up at the sky, half covered in clouds. Looked at the New York crowd and wondered- no. Not even Leah would have someone follow her through 5 hours of clothes shopping. Not when she had so many other ways of finding her. 

Loki had time, now, to figure out what she was going to do when that happened.


End file.
